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8. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS (2005)

Political adviser James Carville, the magnetic focus of "The War Room," attempts to apply his election-strategizing magic to the 2002 Bolivian elections, where Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (aka "Goni") has hired Carville's firm to help him win his way back into the presidency. Director Rachel Boynton maintains a scrupulously nonjudgmental tone as she documents how Carville and company further the "particular brand of democracy" they support by using a barrage of well-tested tactics, like attack ads and focus groups, to make the unpopular Goni seem like the candidate to choose. The result is a fascinating look at the marketing of a political personality.

9./10. PLEASE VOTE FOR ME (2007)/FRONTRUNNERS (2008)

Two of the best docs about elections on the recent festival circuit look not to state- or national-level politics, but to the smaller scale but no less intense world of school elections. Weijun Chen's "Please Vote For Me" examines third-graders campaigning to be class monitor in China, the first time they've ever tried such an experiment. Three children compete, showing off in a talent show, a debate and in their personal speeches -- the result is a telling look at a micro-implementation of democracy. Caroline Suh's winning "Frontrunners" moves up to teenage years and New York City magnet school Stuyvesant, where preternaturally well-spoken overachievers vie for the student body presidency, dealing with concerns like how to get the Asian vote and the best question to ask your opponent during a televised debate.

11. ANYTOWN, USA (2005)

In the small New Jersey town of Bogota, the mayoral race between incumbent Steve Lonegan and his challenger Fred Pesce is disrupted by a last-minute write-in candidate, David Musikant, once the captain of the football team. (Both Lonegan and Musikant are, incidentally, legally blind.) Director Kristian Fraga's gently humorous portrait of the town and the sometimes hapless candidates has lead some people to compare the film to nonfiction "Waiting for Guffman," but the campaign that unfolds is undeniably brutal. The film's an insightful but completely entertaining at the narratives we're so fond of placing on elections versus their gritty practicalities.

12. UNPRECEDENTED: THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (2002)

Robert Greenwald, the filmmaker behind "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," executive produced this 50-minute doc from co-directors Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler. The film, which examines a variety of scandals and outrages from the Florida recount, is a furious piece of agitprop that's made, like the work of Michael Moore, to enrage and to galvanize viewers into taking action. Unlike Moore's work, though, "Unprecedented" offers up actual reporting.

13. ...SO GOES THE NATION (2006)

Heading over to Ohio and on to 2004, Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern scrutinize the before and after of the presidential election in the pivotal Buckeye State, as both Bush and Kerry scrabble for every last vote. Former Clinton adviser Paul Begala is quoted as saying that Kerry had "probably 20 different ways he could have won, and he refused to execute on any of them." Instead, minor gaffes and unforeseen problems add up, and we're shown in excruciating detail how the Democrats were ultimately outcampaigned.

14. AN UNREASONABLE MAN (2007)

This documentary, directed by Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan, actually looks over the entire career of Ralph Nader, but it's the segment on the activist's role as a third party candidate and possible spoiler of the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath that's most fascinating. As Nathan Rabin at the Onion AV Club put it, "the film begins like a Frank Capra movie--pure-hearted idealist takes on corporate fat cats against impossible odds and triumphs--but ends like a Shakespearean tragedy."

15. JOURNEYS WITH GEORGE (2002)

Co-directed by Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of current Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi, this documentary was shot while Pelosi was traveling with the press corps during the 2000 campaign. It offers a rare look at life on the press plane and at the not-always-dignified behind the scenes goings-on over the course of months of political stumping. Pelosi is up front with her politics, but the film often unexpectedly humanizes the president-to-be, particularly when he does the filmmaker a favor by publicly pulling her aside for a chat when the other reporters have taken umbrage: "When they see me talking to you, they're going to act like your friends again, but those people aren't your friends. They can say what they want about me, but at least I know who I am and who my friends are." Indeed.

[Photos: "Our Brand is Crisis," Koch Lorber Films, 2006; "...So Goes The Nation," IFC Films, 2006]